Politics Dominates Bill Protecting Deputy Jobs

March 23, 1986

BROWARD SHERIFF Nick Navarro and State Rep. Fred Lippman are right: Sheriff`s deputies should have the career protection of a civil service system and should be given the right to form a union. Neither man, though, has offered the best approach.

Lippman, D-Hollywood, is the chief booster of a Broward County legislative delegation bill that would create a civil service system for deputies. The Legislature has approved similar bills twice before, giving deputies in Leon and Alachua counties civil service protection from the politics of sheriff`s offices.

The Broward bill would go further, however, by requiring the sheriff to bargain with deputies on work benefits and pay if they form a union and begin contract negotiations. So far, deputies have not selected one union to represent them, and many deputies hold dual memberships in two organizations, the Fraternal Order of Police and the Police Benevolent Association.

Lippman says his only intent is to give deputies job protection and the same right to unionize as state law gives to all other public employees. But in light of Navarro`s active opposition to a controversial annexation proposal endorsed by Lippman, the bill can be seen as petty political retribution against Navarro. After Navarro and a group of deputies stirred much public opposition to the proposal, the annexation bill was dropped.

Perhaps Lippman`s desire to provide job security for deputies would be more believable if he had introduced a bill that would have done the same for all sheriff`s deputies in the state, because the Broward situation is not an isolated one.

As state law and court decisions now stand, Broward deputies have no legal right to form a union because they do not fit into the definition of a public employee. The Florida Supreme Court ruling that describes deputies as a sheriff`s ``alter egos`` is illogical since municipal police officers have the right to unionize.

During his 1985 campaign, Navarro promised to create a civil service system for deputies and to sign a contract with deputies within a year of taking office in January 1985.

He obviously has not fulfilled either promise and contract negotiations so far have been insignificant. Navarro`s offer to negotiate a contract also may be meaningless unless deputies first get a civil service system that redefines them as public employees. Without that redefinition, deputies still would not fall within the purview of state laws governing collective baragaining.

Now, Navarro is promising that he will speed up negotiations, and he is asking deputies to oppose Lippman`s bill. That`s a tough choice for deputies: Loyalty to the man who can hire or fire them at will (as Navarro has already done with at least 28 deputies) or trust a law that could give them some level of job protection no matter who is sheriff.